Buffs, debuffs and us

[kelevandros]

Looking a bit at the cataclysm buffs/debuffs current consolidation, is it my impression or do healer priests bring the fewest possible buffs and debuffs in a raid, in comparison to all other classes (setting resistances aside I presume)?

[Ultima]

Quite a change from the present, eh?

Our Spirit buff wouldn't make any sense in 4.0/Cataclysm. I don't think any magic school resistances are displayed, so we may still have Shadow Resistance.

I'm curious as to why Fortitude now stacks with Commanding Shout, that will annoy some 2v2 couples.

[kelevandros]

Well, what can I say... I guess less money for candles :P

[Kelesti]

Spirit could've been formed into Mana Regen (Fel Intelligence, Blessing of Might, and Mana Spring Totem), so that would've made sense Ultima.

Fortitude with Commanding Shout/Blood Pact may annoy some 2v2 couples, but merging out the two buffs makes sense. I mean, they both go about it differently, but they both do "the same thing", and that's just increase your health pool.

Having one less category means people don't feel obligated to get that one extra buff, and hey if you have a Priest or a Destruction Warlock, your Warriors can use Battle Shout, meaning your Shaman can use Stoneskin... etc etc.

[Ultima]

The positive outcome(s) goes without saying, why else would they do it if it did not fit the new Cata raid/buff philosophy?

To be picky, fortitude was a stam buff while Command and Blood Pact were straight up health buffs.

And yes, the Warrior can now use BS, however CS affected both while BS will only buff one.

I feel your statement about Spirit clashes with your upside on health buff consolidation, maybe we will get it back.

Sent from my iPhone.

[Honen]

Looking a bit at the cataclysm buffs/debuffs current consolidation, is it my impression or do healer priests bring the fewest possible buffs and debuffs in a raid, in comparison to all other classes (setting resistances aside I presume)?

That's exactly what I was thinking. If this change stands I might just find myself staying in shadowform for cataclysm

[fabian]

Well, what can I say... I guess less money for candles :P

Actually, PoF is no more in Cata, just casting PW:F will give the buff to everyone in the raid/party.

It looks like all healers are low on raid buffs, although priests are the lowest.

[nevermore]

Resto Druids bring stat% and +healing aura. That's not too much either if you consider that Holy/Disc Priests bring the Health buff, Shadow resistance, Inspiration and a tank-saving CD (GS or PS).

Paladins and Shamans on the other hand... yeah, buff machines

[Blackmorgrim]

Though at the same time, priests have the largest number of healing tools at their disposal. Plus remember all holy priest direct heals will now place a HoT effect. (which is also effected by crit and haste) There's still a lot of time left for the beta. Physical damage reduction could probably be included in 'resistance' auras.

[gaymer77]

Though at the same time, priests have the largest number of healing tools at their disposal.

Just curious, have you ever played a druid before? If not you should try one out before making that statement. There's a reason why druids are the only healing class that isn't getting a new healing spell.

Resto Druids bring stat% and +healing aura. That's not too much either if you consider that Holy/Disc Priests bring the Health buff, Shadow resistance, Inspiration and a tank-saving CD (GS or PS).

Inspiration is brought by shaman too (but isn't it being removed in Cata anyway from all classes?) and a pally who crits with LOH (which is the best tank saving spell in the game while GS comes in second because of the preventing death mechanic). Shadow resistance is brought by a pally & is situational at best. Fire resistance which is brought by a pally & shaman (and technically a druid too since MOTW gives all resistance too unless that portion is being removed in Cata) is the most needed magical resistance needed since its the most common magical damage used in the game and we don't provide that. And the health buff is being brought by 2 other classes in Cata (and a warrior will use Com Shout in Cata since might is AP & the mana regen and kings is being reduced to 5% which is also brought by a druid). Also if you notice the blue post, druids will be getting a version of Renewed Hope.

Paladins and Shamans on the other hand... yeah, buff machines

I have to say this is like the understatement of a lifetime.

---------- Post added 2010-07-28 at 02:53 PM ----------

The way I see it, unless priests are buffed in both the healing specs to be a damn good healer and shadow is buffed to be competitive dps there is going to be no reason to bring any priest to a raid with the whole new "bring the player not the class" moto. Shadow priests have always lacked being competitive dps for 3 versions of WoW now until near the end. We earned our raid spots because of the utility we brought until they buffed us to being close to on-par with other dps. Pre-BC priests were THE HEALER everyone went to. BC started the change of priests becoming the raid healers that they are currently at. Wrath cemented that raid healer role for priests. Come Cata priests will even moreso be a raid healer & shadow is losing all of its utility (either just losing it all together or the utility is being nerfed into the ground). I don't see where shadow will be anywhere on par with other hybrids or pure dps classes & I don't see how healing priests will be able to compete with stuff like raidwide Tranquility or the "mock" channeled AOE heal shaman are getting that allows them to continue healing with chain heal or direct heals at the same time the "mock" channeled AOE heal is going on nor do I see priest competing with the already OP pallies who are getting a healing aura that allows them to continue to do their direct heals with that healing aura going on.

[Honen]

I don't think it's going to be as bad as you think gaymer... Priest will always have a spot because people will always need healers. If healing is indeed harder in cata, I think the healing priest will be still in high demand because they're still healing whereas a lot of current healers quit and go dps.

However... I stand by my first comment.

My priest is my only 80 toon.. Other than a 78 DK I have no other toons above 30. My motto is "play one class, play it well". I hope this doesn't bite me in the butt come cata.

[Apostolic]

I would at least like to see B-Rez pushed to a second healing spec. I think this would make up for the lack of buffs that priests provide.

[Zhivago]

I would at least like to see B-Rez pushed to a second healing spec. I think this would make up for the lack of buffs that priests provide.

I know this is total wishfullness, and possibly tremendously unbalancing, but how about a Shadow B-Rez...like a 10 minute zombification that can be clicked off, you re-die, only one hit to your eq. That would be sweet and funny and not drop us out of Shadowform.

[kelevandros]

Pre-BC priests were THE HEALER everyone went to. BC started the change of priests becoming the raid healers that they are currently at. Wrath cemented that raid healer role for priests. Come Cata priests will even moreso be a raid healer & shadow is losing all of its utility (either just losing it all together or the utility is being nerfed into the ground).

I'm really not sure about that. Blizzard's goal is to remove the cement I'll give them the benefit of doubt till I get the finished game in my hands. I have a feeling the new healing style will let healers be able to fill all roles. Healing will have a slower pace in cata and that leaves room for diverse healing styles instead of that "heal fast or die" wrath situation which demands very specialized healing.

[nevermore]

Just curious, have you ever played a druid before? If not you should try one out before making that statement. There's a reason why druids are the only healing class that isn't getting a new healing spell.

Wrong. The reason Druids aren't getting a new healing spell is because (as stated by Ghostcrawler half a dozen times) they have some spells that currently are barely used (Healing Touch, Lifebloom) and they are changing these spells to fit a distinc niche. Giving them new healing spells before fixing the old ones wouldn't make any sense.
On a sidenote, you do know Priests have more healing spells than Druids, right?

Inspiration is brought by shaman too (but isn't it being removed in Cata anyway from all classes?)

It's not being removed and the whole point of the shared buffs system is that... you know, they're shared?

and a pally who crits with LOH (which is the best tank saving spell in the game while GS comes in second because of the preventing death mechanic)

LoH as the best tank saving spell? It's a big instant heal, not a tank saving spell.
Tank saving cooldowns are Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression and Hand of Sacrifice.
LoH is basically a big NS heal with a ridiculous cooldown.
Inspiration can be kept up on a tank 100% of the time with proper crit rating, while improved LoH lasts 15 (?) seconds with a 10 (?) min cooldown. Not comparable.

Shadow resistance is brought by a pally & is situational at best. Fire resistance which is brought by a pally & shaman (and technically a druid too since MOTW gives all resistance too unless that portion is being removed in Cata) is the most needed magical resistance needed since its the most common magical damage used in the game and we don't provide that.

1. shared buffs are shared
2. do you honestly see more fire damage than shadow damage in raid encounters?

And the health buff is being brought by 2 other classes in Cata (and a warrior will se Com Shout in Cata since might is AP & the mana regen and kings is being reduced to 5% which is also brought by a druid). Also if you notice the blue post, druids will be getting a version of Renewed Hope.

The 3% less damage taken effect is being completely removed from the game (Renewed Hope is re-designed, Blessing of Sanctuary is removed), read the blue post again.

The way I see it, unless priests are buffed in both the healing specs to be a damn good healer and shadow is buffed to be competitive dps there is going to be no reason to bring any priest to a raid with the whole new "bring the player not the class" moto.

Before every single expansion, every single content patch, every class is completely ruined and the forums fill up with doomsayers.
Yes, Priests will be brought to raids just like any other class. Because, you know, bring the player. That's the whole point of having the shared buff system.
By reading the rest of your post it became quite obvious you are terribly uninformed, please read up on a topic before commenting.
By the way, Healing Hands is not an aura, it's a short duration and short-range AoE heal with a cooldown.

So to sum things up:
- shared buffs are good
- priests won't be worse than everyone else
- priests won't be better than everyone else
- paladins and shamans have too many buffs while priests and druids have too little

[kelevandros]

So to sum things up:
- shared buffs are good
- priests won't be worse than everyone else
- priests won't be better than everyone else
- paladins and shamans have too many buffs while priests and druids have too little

The "won't be worse/won't be better" part is how it should be. It isn't something that is bound to happen as blizzard has messed up creating overpowered/underpowered classes in the past nerfing them / boosting them respectively in the long run. So it all remains to be seen.
Regarding balance reasons and as far as your last sentence is concerned, one would think that the fact that priests and druids have too few buffs is compensated by something else. Is that their selection of spells?

[gaymer77]

They are redesigning some druid healing spells because they have too many as it is that aren't being used because there just isn't room for them to be effective. Lifebloom is still something that tank healer druids use (hell a good raid healer druid will still keep LB up on the tanks and let them bloom). Healing Touch isn't used because they implimented Nourish that provides more HPS even if the druid is picking up all of the HT talents and gimping the rest of your healing style. Nourish was too good of a healing spell for tank healer druids to have a direct heal. THAT is why they have spells being redesigned. THAT is why druids aren't getting new spells because the redesigned spells will essentially be "new spells" for them. The other healing classes (pallies & shaman) are getting more effective healing spells (lawl like pallies needed help with effective healing) that are giving them more AOE healing.

Priests get standard: binding heal, divine hymn, flash heal, greater heal, heal (4 ranks and was replaced at 40ish by greater heal), holy nova, lesser heal (3 ranks and is replaced when you get flash heal), prayer of healing, and renew. So you can say that its either 9 or more accurately 7 untalented healing spells given to priests (add 1 for disc that picks up penance & add 1 or 2 for holy priests that pick up CoH and if you consider GS to be an "healing spell" and not a "tank saver" as you put it add in 1 more if you want to call the glyph PW:S a healing spell but also keep in mind that Blizzard has said that all glyphs are getting an overhaul for Cata so its not necessarily going to be the same thing).

Druids get standard: rejuv, regrowth, tranquility, healing touch, lifebloom, and nourish. That's a total of 6 healing spells. Going resto gets you wild growth & swiftmend for an extra 2 spells that brings it up to 8 healing spells for a resto druid (you could even consider living seed a healing spell talent since it heals the person again on a crit & could consider rebirth a healing spell since its the only spell besides soulstone that returns someone to life with health and mana while in combat for a total of 10 healing spells if you really think about it) Oh and incase you missed that part of the blue post, they are thinking about (and probably will be) giving warlocks the ability to combat res via their soulstones instead of giving it to a healing class.

I never said they weren't shared. I was pointing out from your post that included inspiration & shadow resistance as part of what a holy/disc priest brought to the table when you were comparing it to what a druid brings.

How many other classes do you know that can take a tank that just took enough damage to take them to 200 HP and non-crit them for 25k instantly and crit them for 50k (if we're talking about a non-healer, prot pallies can non-crit heal with that same spell for 50-70k and crit for 6 figures) without any OP buff from a boss fight? If that's not a tank saving moment idk what is then. Kinda works the same way that GS works if you really think about it except that it doesn't prevent death it only recovers from a near death which would still save a tank (aka tank saving). Oh and it costs no mana to use too. So basically you're saying (or maybe just implying) that you have never seen a pally use LOH and prevent a tank's death since its not a tank saving spell and is never used on tanks that are near death...at least that's what your words are saying.

1. Yeah shared buffs are shared buffs. No suprise there. 2. You encounter more shadow dmg than fire dmg while raiding & have since pre-BC and during BC too? I only remember needing to get shadow resistance for what 2 fights ever. I remember farming for fire resistance pre-BC for lots of things (guess what, we're headed back to more FIRE raids in Cata if you couldn't tell from what's been released or who the end boss is going to be). In Wrath there was more fire fights than shadow fights. Even in ICC there are more fire fights than shadow fights.

The 3% less damage taken effect is being completely removed from the game (Renewed Hope is re-designed, Blessing of Sanctuary is removed), read the blue post again.

See this is where I like your reply. It shows YOU didn't read the blue post and understand it. Not only is Renewed Hope and Sanc (becoming passive) not gone but...well I'll let GC say it in his words "Did you mean Renewed Hope? Grace is priest only. Also considering adding a Resto druid talent here". Wait, so its not gone but its also probably going to be given to resto druids? What is being removed is the TOL & Imp Devo Aura +healing auras. (can I get a disc priest that's in beta or a disc priest that has read up on the changes to the spec to confirm/dispute if renewed hope is going to be a passive buff because I swore I read that it was being changed to exactly that)

Before every single expansion, every single content patch, every class is completely ruined and the forums fill up with doomsayers.

The difference between other classes and priests is that infact priests have ended up being nerfed time & time again with every xpac and with quite few patches & you would know that if you had played the class since pre-BC...and if you have played a priest since pre-BC then its that you're blind to how nerfed the class has been.

By the way, Healing Hands is not an aura, it's a short duration and short-range AoE heal with a cooldown.

Healing Hands may have a short duration (10 seconds) but a holy pally will have it at a 30 sec CD (standard is 1 minute) & its not a channeled spell, its a hot (end result is the same as calling it an aura since its based on 10 yards of where the pally is standing). That means it will have a 1/3 uptime and pallies will be up in the heat of battle healers that keep the melee alive for the most part. It has a 10 yard range and heals ALL raid/party members within that 10 yards...kinda how Tranquility is being changed to hit ALL raid/party members instead of the party limitation it currently has & how Healing Rain from shaman hits ALL raid/party members within 30 yards of the area it was cast on (non-channeled spell too). BTW did anyone read about the priest ALL raid/party member heal we're getting...wait we're not.

By reading the rest of your post it became quite obvious you are terribly uninformed, please read up on a topic before commenting.

Other way areound I believe. You seem to be the one that is misinformed

[Dianthe]

Resto Druids bring stat% and +healing aura. That's not too much either if you consider that Holy/Disc Priests bring the Health buff, Shadow resistance, Inspiration and a tank-saving CD (GS or PS).

Paladins and Shamans on the other hand... yeah, buff machines

Are druids keeping that since it was part of their tree form? The tree form is completely different now so dunno if it will still increase healing taken :P

At the poster above, next time you decide to furiously type a wall of QQ make it shorter, maybe someone will actually read it then!

[gaymer77]

Regarding balance reasons and as far as your last sentence is concerned, one would think that the fact that priests and druids have too few buffs is compensated by something else. Is that their selection of spells?

If its compensating by something else for priests we have yet to see it then. All that they've released has been nerfs or removal of our utility or giving our utility to other classes including those utility talents/spells that were based on the spec of the priest not just baseline priest spells.

[nevermore]

See this is where I like your reply. It shows YOU didn't read the blue post and understand it. Not only is Renewed Hope and Sanc (becoming passive) not gone but...well I'll let GC say it in his words "Did you mean Renewed Hope? Grace is priest only. Also considering adding a Resto druid talent here". Wait, so its not gone but its also probably going to be given to resto druids?

The post you refer to is almost 3 months old. Since then, they completely re-designed the talent trees. Since then, they re-designed Renewed Hope. Since then, they deleted Blessing of Sanctuary. Since then they released an updated list of raid buffs/debuffs (from which the 3% reduced damage is missing!)
They were in the Alpha/early Beta. Now they are not. Go figure. As of now, the 3% less damage taken buff is not in the game. They might give it back, they might not.

What is being removed is the TOL & Imp Devo Aura +healing auras. (can I get a disc priest that's in beta or a disc priest that has read up on the changes to the spec to confirm/dispute if renewed hope is going to be a passive buff because I swore I read that it was being changed to exactly that)

So in the latest Beta builds they created a whole new talent for Protection Paladins (Protector of the Innocent) that increases healing received by 6% with any aura up, just so they can delete it later on? Makes sense.
(keep in mind the talent is badly worded, but if you look up the spell details it increases healing taken)

Other way areound I believe. You seem to be the one that is misinformed

Show me a single sentence in my post that was misinformed.
Or is this just a compulsory "NO U" punchline to keep the mood up?